


Schematics

by cosmic_llin



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Early in Canon, Engineers, Friendship, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 15:19:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1309591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/pseuds/cosmic_llin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>B'Elanna gets to know the captain a bit better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Schematics

B’Elanna swore. She didn’t use her Klingon vocabulary too often these days, but it was great for being annoyed in. English and Spanish curses didn’t really compare to a good _taHqeq_ or _tu’HomIraH_ when it came to relieving her feelings.

‘I hope that wasn’t directed at me...’ an amused voice drifted up the ladder to her.

B’Elanna flushed. ‘Captain... no, of course not...’

‘At ease, B’Elanna, I’m kidding,’ the captain said.

She climbed up beside B’Elanna and sat, with her feet dangling off the gangway that circled the warp core. ‘Aren’t you off duty?’ she asked.

‘An hour ago,’ B’Elanna sighed. ‘But I... I had some things to take care of.’

‘Anything I can help with?’

B’Elanna looked down. ‘No... uh... thank you, captain.’

Captain Janeway didn’t say anything, just looked at her in that way she had, the way that made B’Elanna feel like a first-year cadet. She’d been the chief engineer for weeks now, and still she didn’t feel anything like equal to the task. Every time the captain spoke to her she was sure it would be to revoke her position and reassign her to waste reclamation.

‘All right,’ said B’Elanna, when the silence got too much. ‘I’m... well, to tell you the truth, captain... I’m a little stuck. I can’t get the secondary environmental sub-command modules to configure properly. I’ve been trying for hours. They’re so different to the ones on the Val Jean.’

Even that was more than she should have said. Now she just sounded like she was whining. _Nice job coming off like a professional_ , she admonished herself.

The captain nodded. ‘They’re a little tricky, as I recall,’ she said. ‘It’s the bio-neural circuitry, it doesn’t always react the way you’d expect. Have you tried running the locking sequences with the manual override in place and the intermix gauge deactivated?’

B’Elanna tried not to cringe. ‘I’ve... tried almost everything _but_ that,’ she said.

‘I could be wrong,’ said the captain, ‘but it doesn’t hurt to investigate. Come on, I’ll give you a hand.’

She scooched over to the access panel that B’Elanna had been sweating over for the last hour. ‘Hand me that hyperspanner.’

B’Elanna obliged. Between the two of them they had it done in ten minutes.

‘I’m sorry, captain,’ B’Elanna said afterward, gazing at her clenched fists in her lap. ‘I should have known that.’

The captain smiled and patted her on the shoulder. ‘Give yourself some time, Lieutenant. It’s a big ship, you won’t learn everything overnight. You haven’t been here that long.’

‘Neither have you,’ B’Elanna pointed out. ‘But you seem to know everything there is to know about Voyager. And you can’t have been aboard for more than a few days before I arrived.’

‘True,’ said the captain. ‘But I spent months while Voyager was being built, looking over the schematics whenever I had a spare moment. Close to the launch I...’ she grinned, sheepishly, ‘I used to get so excited about it that I had trouble sleeping, and I’d sit up in bed with the blueprints and specifications, trying to imagine what it would be like. Visualising my way around the systems, trying to picture the layout of the Jefferies tubes...’

‘You did that?’ B’Elanna asked, looking at the captain with new appreciation. ‘I... I thought I was the only person who did that.’

Captain Janeway looked so delighted that B’Elanna’s lips quirked upwards too in spite of her embarrassment.

‘Come on,’ said the captain, ‘I have an idea.’

She was up and halfway down the ladder already.

‘Where are we...’ B’Elanna began.

‘You’ll see!’ the captain said.

B’Elanna scrambled down the ladder after her.

* * *

It was late enough that there was a holodeck free for a change.

‘Computer, load program Janeway Voyager Three,’ the captain said, as the doors closed again behind them.

A PADD appeared in her hand, and around them the room shimmered and grew darker. Coloured lights blinked in the gloom all around them.

‘Where are we?’ B’Elanna asked.

‘Inside the main systems control panel on the bridge,’ said the captain.

B’Elanna’s eyes widened as she looked around - she could see it. The gel packs were four times her height, the power couplings were as thick as tree trunks, when she walked closer to them the indicator lights were so bright she had to shield her eyes for a moment - but she knew exactly where she was.

‘So, it must be this way to the environmental control relays!’ she said, jogging towards them. ‘Captain, this is incredible!’

‘It covers the whole ship,’ said the captain. ‘Any scale you like. Here, let me show you.’

She entered a few commands into the PADD and suddenly they were somewhere else, somewhere blue-lit with swirling clouds all around them.

B’Elanna’s eyes widened. ‘Are we inside the warp core?’

‘Isn’t it beautiful? I know it’s only a hologram, but still, there’s something so thrilling about it... look, this is what happens when we go to warp...’

She touched a button and the mist began to pulse. B’Elanna let out an involuntary whoop of excitement.

‘What else?’ she asked.

They visited the computer core, the inside of a replicator, the deflector dish and the inner workings of the holodeck itself. They explored the inside of a torpedo tube, a warp nacelle and the deuterium injectors. B’Elanna had such a good time that she almost forgot how intimidated she was.

‘I should really turn in,’ said the captain at last. ‘But... one more before we go?’

And B’Elanna found herself not inside the ship but on it - standing on the top of the hull, above the bridge. The stars were streaking past as though they were at warp. She fought the instinct to hold her breath, to grab something to keep from being torn away.

She laughed nervously. ‘This would be impossible.’

The captain was lying down, her back against the hull plating, looking upwards at the stars. ‘I know, but isn’t it a marvellous feeling?’

B’Elanna got down to lie beside her. The stars rushed overhead, blurs of white light, and beneath them Voyager swam through it all. B’Elanna could feel the hum of the ship in her bones, the warmth of her through her skin. And even though in this simulation they were outside Voyager, really they were still inside her, and when they shut the program off that hum, that warmth, would still be there.

‘It’s not bad,’ she agreed.


End file.
